Having published my first story and taken on board some constructive criticism I started googling to see what I could learn about story writing!

I came across the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Index Calculator which looks good and might interest others!

Copy and paste your story, paragraph, etc. into the calculator and it gives you two readings.

The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score indicates how easy a text is to read. A high score implies an easy text. In comparison comics typically score around 90 while legalese can get a score below 10.

The Flesch-Kincaid Grade level indicates the grade a person will have to have reached to be able to understand the text. E.g. a grade level of 7 means that a seventh grader will be able to understand the text.

Joined: 10/19/2009Posts: 5,833Location: Right here on Lush Stories..., United States

I would advise not putting a lot of weight on the results of this thing...I ran a couple poems and stories through it and got similar results...Apparently my poems were written by a super-genius, but are unreadable...here is the result for "Lover's Story"...

The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score indicates how easy a text is to read. A high score implies an easy text. In comparison comics typically score around 90 while legalese can get a score below 10.

Grade Level: 59? Readability: -73???

A negative reading ease score???

On the other hand, as far as my stories go, I found out I might as well just hand some kindergarten kid a piece of paper and a box of crayons and have them write my stories for me...it would save me a lot of time and effort...You know you want it, you know you need it bad...get it now on Amazon.com...Lush Erotica, an Anthology of Award Winning Sex Stories

Katrina busy unfurling her guitar cord tangled at her left foot , Melvin baritones "picture you upon knees' ,Katrina liberated from the snake pit of chords , replies to his sing song in a speaking voice 'What the fuck ? Romeo owns only one chair ? 'Melvin continuing 'Tea for Two' Katrina rolling her eyes like an annoyed waitress,deadpans 'Go figure ,dude has only one chair but enough tea for two" suppressing a giggle , Melvin belts out the next bar, 'No one near to see or here, ''Who the fuck would wanna eavesdrop on people drinking tea ,,,that's way too kinky for even Tommy O. Katrina strikes, nodding toward talented but tragic guitarist Tom O'Malley a wisp of a man , his forearms adorned with ornate grammatically incorrect matching tattoos the left reading to fast to live ,the right reading to young to die . 'We won't let it be known we only a telephone' , Melvin croons ,'this mudder phucker must be from Da Parish, too cheap 2 get a second chair , but got a Blackberry yet ain't givin' out the number ...that do even make a bit of sense " Katrina scoffs, Melvin,shaking his head full of Hendrix hair , 'Dawn will break .. you'll bake a cake '. She waves her arms like an over caffinated traffic cop marches toward him , " Hold up ! .hold up ! ,you freaking communisss you gots the wrong girl iffin' ya think Katrina Marie Trahan is baking a friggin' cake before she runs a brush cross her teeth"

Joined: 10/22/2011Posts: 2,005Location: Somewhere with Sun and Sea, United States

I had read this post previously and since then use the Flesch-Kincaid website to analyze my own writingAs Dirty Martini mentioned, poetry just does not work and I would obtain similar scores as him when checking my poetry.

I just finalized a story I wrote last year. The final chapter of "You Me" and obtained the following>Method used: Flesch-Kincaid (English).

Then looked at a later story, "Coming to You" and obtained the following>Flesch-Kincaid Grade level: 8.Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score: 67. Coincidentally, my last story "Collaring My Slut" had identical results.It would seem that my writing had trending to easier reading but has stabilized.

Out of interest I checked the opening page of Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" which scored>Flesch-Kincaid Grade level: 10.Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score: 60.

Just for those that have it. MS Word 2010 has this scale built into its spellchecker/grammar checker. It is easy to use. Any of these scales are only correct if done by sentence first (correcting those first for readability) and then by paragraph. If you do this scale by paragraph only, you will get higher scores than normal since it takes in sentence structure, words and punctuation into the overall score.

It takes more time this way, but the writing will flow better, at times. Other times, for complex scene sentences, this scale is totally wrong.

Out of curiosity, I wrote a quick run-on sentence filled with overwrought descriptives and big vocabulary and got a Grade level of 19 and a read-ease score of 35. It's one of my pet peeves with a lot of writing - big words and overcooked descriptions doesn't make it better - it's often an annoyance to read. My english teacher used to compare it to the impact and simplicity of a great black dress. There's no need to embellish it with bows and frills and unnecessary adornments - it just takes away from the design. Same as with writing - stay away from the thesaurus and using too many adjectives and stick with words that are familiar to our everyday lives, especially when it comes to erotica.

It's one of my pet peeves with a lot of writing - big words and overcooked descriptions doesn't make it better - it's often an annoyance to read. My english teacher used to compare it to the impact and simplicity of a great black dress. There's no need to embellish it with bows and frills and unnecessary adornments - it just takes away from the design. Same as with writing - stay away from the thesaurus and using too many adjectives and stick with words that are familiar to our everyday lives, especially when it comes to erotica.

Yeah that would be me... but I've only written one story soo hopefully I will get better.

Joined: 7/3/2009Posts: 2,925Location: Lost in the ozone somewhere east of Luckenbach Tx,

Try running a FK on some of your favorite authors. Most of them will have a surprisingly low grade level. Also, the FK leans toward smaller words and shorter sentences. That's why dialogue almost always registers a lower grade level than does narrative. Check it out.

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwords. - ROBERT HEINLEIN

Several readability algorithms use syllable counting to determine their scores. The current syllable counter used here will only work with English text, so scores for other languages may be inaccurate.

You cannot post new topics in this forum.
You cannot reply to topics in this forum.
You cannot delete your posts in this forum.
You cannot edit your posts in this forum.
You cannot create polls in this forum.
You cannot vote in polls in this forum.